Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev

Gorbachev is a redirect to this article. Further meanings are listed under Gorbachev (disambiguation) .

Gorbachev at the UNESCO Charity Gala 2011

Mikhail Sergejewitsch Gorbatschow ( Russian Михаил Сергеевич Горбачёв listen ^{? / I} , scientific transliteration Michail Sergeevič Gorbačёv ; born March 2, 1931 in Priwolnoje , USSR ) is a Russian politician. From March 1985 to August 1991 he was General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) and from March 1990 to December 1991 President of the Soviet Union . He set new accents in Soviet politics with glasnost (openness) and Perestroika (remodeling). In disarmament negotiations with the United States , he ushered in the end of the Cold War . He received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1990 .

Life

Childhood and adolescence

Mikhail Sergejewitsch Gorbachev was born on March 2, 1931 to a Russian father, Sergei Andrejewitsch Gorbachev (1909-1976), and a Ukrainian mother, Marija Panteleevna Gopkalo (1911-1993), in the North Caucasus region (now the Stavropol region ). Gorbachev's parents were farmers in a collective farm in Privolnoye. Gorbachev's maternal grandfather, Pantelei Jefimowitsch Gopkalo, was head of this collective farm for 17 years, but was arrested in 1937 on suspicion of Trotskyism . This is where Mikhail Gorbachev grew up, spending a lot of time with his maternal grandparents, who were infatuated with their grandchildren. He gained his first professional experience at the age of 17 when he and his father harvested several thousand hundredweight of grain, for which he received the Order of Lenin and he received the Order of the Red Banner of Labor . He was unfit for military service. Gorbachev studied law at Lomonossow University in Moscow , where he met his future wife Raissa († 1999). They married in September 1953 and moved back together to his home region of Stavropol in the northern Russian Caucasus after Gorbachev had finished his law studies in 1955.

Party career

Gorbachev in conversation with US President Ronald Reagan (1985)

At the age of 21, Gorbachev joined the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) and from then on worked for the party in his native Stavropol for 22 years. In 1966, at the age of 35, he graduated from the Agricultural Institute with a degree in agricultural business administration. At the same time he continued his party career and was appointed First Secretary for Agriculture in 1970 and a member of the Central Committee of the CPSU in the following year . In 1972 he led a Soviet delegation to Belgium , two years later he became the representative of the Supreme Soviet and chairman of the Permanent Commission on Youth Policy (Russian Комиссия по делам молодёжи Совета Союза Верховного Советет). He became a member of the Kremlin leadership soon after the unexpected death of his sponsor F. Kulakov in 1978 as his successor in the party office of the Central Committee Secretary for Agriculture and then in rapid succession as a candidate (1979) and full member (1980) of the Politburo . While working in the Politburo, he met Yuri Andropov , the head of the KGB , who also came from Stavropol and who supported Gorbachev in his career in the party apparatus in the years to come.

Because of his position in the party, he was also able to travel to western countries. In 1975 he visited the Federal Republic of Germany with a delegation , in 1983 he led a Soviet commission to Canada to meet with Pierre Trudeau , then Prime Minister, and members of the Canadian Parliament. In 1984 he traveled to the UK and spoke to Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher . She then commented positively about him: “I like Mr. Gorbachev. We can do business together "(German:" I like Mr. Gorbatschow. We can work with him "; December 17, 1984 in an interview with the BBC).

General Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU

Michail Gorbatschow and Erich Honecker on the XI. SED party congress in April 1986

Party leader of the CPSU 1910 - - 1920 - - 1930 - - 1940 - - 1950 - - 1960 - - 1970 - - 1980 - - 1990 - - 2000 -               ← Vladimir Ilyich Lenin ← Joseph Stalin ← Nikita Khrushchev ← Leonid Brezhnev ← Yuri Andropov ← Konstantin Chernenko ← Mikhail Gorbachev  Soviet heads of state

After Leonid Brezhnev and Yuri Andropov , who only held office for a short time, Konstantin Tschernenko was once again a seriously ill old man who steered the fate of the Soviet Union. Representatives of a new generation were under discussion as possible successors, the “hardliner” Grigori Romanov from Leningrad and the “reformer” Gorbachev.

On March 11, 1985, the day after the death of the then General Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU, Konstantin Chernenko, Gorbachev was elected the second youngest General Secretary in the history of the Communist Party at the age of 54. At the beginning of his tenure, he started the largest anti-alcohol campaign that ever existed in the USSR, with restrictions on the sale of vodka , the closure of breweries and distilleries and the destruction of grapevines . As the de facto ruler of the Soviet Union , he introduced the concepts of glasnost (openness) and perestroika (restructuring) into political work. This process began during the 27th Congress of the CPSU in February 1986.

Gorbachev acknowledged the party 's political mistakes since Stalin's time and the crimes of World War II . Under his responsibility, inter alia admitted the existence of the previously stubbornly denied secret additional protocol to the German-Soviet nonaggression pact between the German Reich and the Soviet Union of 1939, as well as the subsequent Katyn massacre of Soviet troops against the Polish leadership in 1940. He also ensured the withdrawal of the Soviet Union from Afghanistan .

Mikhail Gorbachev (1986)

On December 19, 1986, the regime critic Andrei Sakharov (1921–1989) was rehabilitated by the Soviet government and was allowed to return to Moscow from exile . In 1987 Nikolai Bukharin (1888–1938) and other members of the opposition from the time of the Stalin Purges were rehabilitated .

In 1988 Gorbachev became chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet , replacing Andrei Gromyko as head of state. On December 7, 1988, Gorbachev gave a speech at the 43rd UN General Assembly in New York, in which he held out the prospect of unilateral disarmament steps .

Summit off Malta (1989)

In the same year Gorbachev distanced himself from the Brezhnev Doctrine (his position is known as the Sinatra Doctrine ) and thus enabled the Warsaw Pact countries to determine their own form of government. In 1989 the new freedom led to a series of mostly peaceful revolutions in Eastern Europe. This ended the Cold War . Four weeks after the fall of the Berlin Wall , by which Gorbachev was surprised, he met on December 2nd and 3rd, 1989 off Malta on the Soviet cruise ship Maxim Gorki for a summit talk with US President George HW Bush and stated: “The Cold War is over.” At first Gorbachev rejected German reunification . Only after the first free Volkskammer election in the GDR , in which the groups advocating German unity had won an absolute majority on March 18, 1990, as well as the resolution of the Bundestag on the recognition of the Oder-Neisse border as Poland's western border, he gave his Resistance against the course of Federal Chancellor Helmut Kohl, which is striving for reunification . Gorbachev received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1990 .

In the Soviet Republic of Azerbaijan , political groups striving for independence, such as the Popular Front, formed around 1988 because of disputes with the Soviet leadership and the neighboring Soviet Republic of Armenia . The movement organized demonstrations against communist functionaries and for Azerbaijan's independence from the Soviet Union. On January 15, 1990, the Popular Front and other dissidents took over many areas of Azerbaijan and ousted communist officials. On January 18, 1990, they blocked the main routes into Baku . In order to prevent further unrest and to end the efforts of the independence movement to overthrow the communist regime, Gorbachev and Defense Minister Dmitry Yasov declared a state of emergency for Baku . On January 20, 1990, the army was deployed. More than 130 people, mostly Azerbaijanis, were killed and around 800 people injured. Gorbachev later described the decision to declare a state of emergency and dispatch the armed forces as "the greatest mistake of his political career".

President of the Soviet Union

On March 14, 1990, Gorbachev was elected President of the USSR with 59.2% of the vote at a special congress of People's Deputies of the USSR . During the traditional May Parade in 1990, he and the Soviet leadership were whistled in front of the Kremlin . The democratization of the USSR and Eastern Europe led to a massive decrease in power of the Communist Party and ultimately to the collapse of the Soviet Union and the entire Eastern Bloc .

In the course of the independence movement of the Baltic states , there was military violence, which culminated in the January events in Lithuania in 1991 . The responsibility for this is attributed to Gorbachev, but he denies it himself. In August of the same year took some orthodox communist politician, together with part of the military and led by the State Committee on the State of Emergency , a coup attempt in Moscow , while Gorbachev and his wife Raisa and bodyguard three days under house arrest in a government residence on the peninsula Crimea were . The then newly elected President of the Russian SFSR , Boris Yeltsin , succeeded in eliminating the putschists and taking over state power. Thus, the Soviet power passed into the hands of the Russian Union Republic, which resulted in Ukraine's declaration of independence one day after the coup was suppressed . While Gorbachev initially ignored this, he recognized the independence of the Baltic states of Estonia , Latvia and Lithuania in the same month - de facto ousted by Yeltsin after the failure of the August coup .

Although Ukraine suspended its independence until a referendum , the other Soviet republics, apart from Russia, gradually declared their independence. In the Central Asian republics in particular, however, this was mainly done to - successfully - secure power for the local Communist Party leadership. Gorbachev's attempt in the following months to save the Soviet Union as a rather loose confederation failed due to the resistance of Ukraine, without whose membership Russia would not be ready for a new union either.

Resignation as President

Berlin Wall on October 3, 1990

After the failed coup, the putschists ("gang of eight") were arrested. Yeltsin issued a decree banning the activities of the CPSU on Russian soil during a globally broadcast speech by Gorbachev in front of the Russian parliament and interrupted Gorbachev's speech to announce his decree. Gorbachev - not only the Soviet President, but at this point also General Secretary of the CPSU, which had just been declared illegal - looked completely taken by surprise. This humiliating demonstration of power by Yeltsin against Gorbachev accelerated the secession process of the other republics, as the disempowerment of the central state in favor of the sub-republics was impressively manifested to the whole world. It is questionable whether Yeltsin was aware of the full scope of his actions.

On December 25, 1991, Gorbachev resigned as President of the Soviet Union.

Post-Soviet political engagement

In 1992 Gorbachev founded the Gorbachev Foundation , and in 1993 the environmental protection organization International Green Cross . In this context he also took over the patronage of the European Green Belt . He became a member of the Club of Rome . Especially since the beginning of the 21st century , Gorbachev has criticized the global power politics of the government around George W. Bush .

Domestically, he sees himself as a social democrat and has served as chairman of several Russian parties with this orientation. He criticizes the unbridled capitalism in Russia and today sees perestroika as a social democratic program, which, however, was not completed by the radical market reforms after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

When he ran for the Russian presidential election in 1996 , he received 0.51% of the vote. Gorbachev sees this as the result of election fraud:

“How do you know how many votes I really got? One of Yeltsin's confidants publicly stated: According to him, I would have received 25 percent. In fact, I got 15. The morning after the election, one of my representatives from Orenburg called me and said I was just under 7. On the evening of the same day it was 0.65 percent. How did Stalin say? The most important thing is how you add up. "

In a speech to the German-Russian Forum in May 2007, Gorbachev criticized Yeltsin's policy, which had "smashed" much in Russia. In keeping with Russian common sense, he took Vladimir Putin under protection, who would have rebuilt it. Gorbachev sent a letter to the German media in early 2008 expressing his opinion that the free media in Russia were getting stronger. If correspondents did not understand this and other positive developments, they would be too little interested and instead spread stereotypes without the necessary variety of topics.

In June 2006 he acquired 49 percent of the shares in Novaya Gazeta together with the former Duma member Alexander Lebedew (most recently the Just Russia Party ) . Gorbachev had already supported the newspaper when it was founded, while Lebedev said it was intended to keep unwanted investors away.

On October 8, 2008, Gorbachev announced the founding of the Independent Democratic Party of Russia together with Alexander Lebedev , which, however, was given little chance in elections.

Gorbachev is also committed to the global human rights movement . He was a member of a jury of renowned personalities who were involved in the selection of the universal logo for human rights in 2011 .

In August 2011, Gorbachev criticized the news magazine Der Spiegel for democratic deficits under the rule of Putin, who at that time held the office of Russian Prime Minister and was aiming for a third term as President of the Russian Federation :

“Putin wants to stay in power. But not to finally solve our most pressing problems - education, medicine, poverty. The people are not asked, the parties are puppets of the regime. Governors are no longer directly elected, direct mandates in the elections have been abolished, everything is only done via party lists. But new parties are not allowed, they interfere. "

The role of the ruling party United Russia reminded him "sometimes of the old CPSU":

“I am concerned about what the United Russia party, of which Putin is leader, and the government are doing: They want to maintain the status quo, there is no step forward. On the contrary: they are dragging us back in time while the country urgently needs modernization. 'United Russia' is sometimes reminiscent of the old CPSU. "

At the end of December 2011, in an interview between Gorbachev and the Echo Moskwy radio station, there were again critical remarks about Putin:

"Two terms as president, one term as head of government - that's basically three terms, that's really enough."

In view of the mass protests against the parliamentary election on December 4, 2011 , which was overshadowed by allegations of fraud , Gorbachev called for the election to be canceled and said:

"I would advise Vladimir Vladimirovich to leave immediately."

During his visit to Berlin in November 2014, Gorbachev did not want to criticize the current Russian policy towards Ukraine, although he continued to see criticisms:

“I will resolutely defend Russia and its President Vladimir Putin. I am absolutely convinced that Putin is pursuing Russia's interests better than anyone today. There is, of course, something in his politics that can be criticized. But I don't want to do this, and I don't want anyone else to either. "

With regard to the Ukraine conflict (→ Crimean crisis , war in Ukraine since 2014 ), Gorbachev criticized the USA; he accused her of using Ukraine's problems as an excuse to interfere with other countries. On the other hand, he made it clear that in 1990 there had been no promise by NATO regarding eastward expansion .

In a publication with Franz Alt in 2017, Gorbachev appealed to the world: “Come to your senses - NEVER AGAIN!” He still sees the danger of nuclear war as long as the last atomic bomb has not been abolished. “Such a war would be the last in human history. After that there would be no one left who could still wage war. "

“With all the respect and appreciation that I show for national interests, national characteristics and national cultures, I would be happy if we all became aware of one thing in today's world, which is becoming more and more globalized: We all live on ONE planet! We are ONE humanity. "

- "Come to your senses at last - never again war !: An appeal from Mikhail Gorbachev to the world" Benevento Publishing 2017

Review and critical appreciation

Gorbachev's review

15 years after the “great upheaval”, Mikhail Gorbachev's balance sheet turned out to be rather negative: nowhere in the West was there a real partner for him at the time; Probably nobody in the other camp understood the risk he, the most powerful man beyond the Iron Curtain at the time, was taking with the political concept of "glasnost and perestroika"; Not a single statesman in the West understood that the common “House of Europe” he was striving for would have required a profound renewal of Western structures, institutions and ways of thinking in order to open up a completely new, unique future perspective for the entire continent. In retrospect he had to find out that in the entire western state system there was only an “unparalleled triumphalism” and “pure victorious mentality”. In the end, that was the reason why Russia, after the "political sell-off" and the "economic-political anarchy" of the Yeltsin years, would have needed a "power man" like Vladimir Putin if it did not want to disappear completely from world politics.

Gorbachev accused Putin of creating an “imitation of democracy”. The leadership of the country under Putin wants to "rule without any control and secure their own material prosperity". But Gorbachev defended the Russian intervention in Georgia in 2008 and the annexation of Crimea in 2014. However, he dismissed the claim of official Russian propaganda that in talks about German unification in 1990 he was promised not to expand NATO to the east as a “myth " back.

Reception at home and abroad

Mikhail Gorbachev (2010)

In the West , Gorbachev is highly valued because he ended the Cold War and instrumental in the success of the German unit was involved. In addition, he channeled the forces released during the collapse of the Soviet Union inwards, into an implosion , instead of letting them penetrate the outside in an aggressive form, for example in a war. The biographer Gail Sheehy summed up in 1991: “Mikhail Sergejewitsch Gorbachev, the last romantic communist who threw communism on the rubbish heap of history. Mikhail Sergejewitsch Gorbachev, the man who changed the world and lost his country in the process. "

In Russia, however , Gorbachev's reputation is far worse than in the West, because it is widely believed that it caused the collapse of the Soviet Union and the subsequent phase of economic and political uncertainty. On the occasion of his 80th birthday , he was honored with the highest distinction in Russia, the Order of Andrew, for services as a statesman , but he also experienced a lot of criticism and hatred for his presidency in the country. Among other things, he is accused of having betrayed the country and people. Sergei Mikhailovich Mironov , chairman of the Russian Federation Council from 2001 to 2011, accused Gorbachev of betraying the fatherland because of his signature on the 1991 disarmament treaties. In April 2014 there was an initiative by members of the Russian parliament to initiate criminal proceedings against Gorbachev for his actions in December 1991. The initiative accused him of deliberately leading the country "into the abyss". The intended process was intended to be an initial legal assessment of what happened 23 years earlier.

The biographer György Dalos sees Gorbachev in line with those communists in the Eastern Bloc whom Hans Magnus Enzensberger apostrophized as “heroes of retreat” because they would have helped in the peaceful dismantling of their system: “If you apply this ironic view of Mikhail Gorbachev, then you have to we see in him a true Napoleon of retreat, whose tragedy consisted of all things in the fact that he had to march victoriously from defeat to defeat, so to speak. ”The post-Soviet legacy did not lead to lasting peace in the world; In the meantime, solutions for ecological, economic and socio-cultural problems must urgently be found for a new generation in the freed countries. The difficult legacy of the 20th century weighs on young people, "a huge mountain that Mikhail Gorbachev has begun to remove with great vigor and ambition, albeit with variable success."

Outside of politics

Since the end of his presidency, Gorbachev has been concerned primarily with music, in addition to post-Soviet politics. He released a children's CD together with actress Sophia Loren and ex-US President Bill Clinton in 2003 and received a Grammy for it . Since the death of his wife Raisa Gorbacheva in 1999, he has lived not far from his daughter Irina Wirganskaya near Moscow.

Several London daily newspapers falsely claimed in March 2008 that he had professed Christianity while visiting Assisi . Gorbachev made it clear, however, that he was not a Christian , but was still an atheist .

honors and awards

Awarding of the Franz Josef Strauss Prize to Gorbachev in the Munich Residence

Gorbachev bust by Serge Mangin on the cruise ship Germany

Gorbachev monument in Dessau-Roßlau

• 1947: Order of the Red Banner of Labor
• 1966: Decoration of Honor of the Soviet Union
• 1971, 1973, 1981: Order of Lenin
• 1978: Order of the October Revolution
• 1989: Otto Hahn Peace Medal in gold
• 1990: Nobel Peace Prize
• 1990: Four Freedoms Award , Special Award
• 1994: Grawemeyer Award
• 1996: Professor of the technical-practical sector of the International Academy of Sciences (AIS) San Marino
• 1998: Comet (music prize) for extraordinary services to European youth
• 1999: Special level of the Grand Cross of the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany
• 1999: Grand Cross of the Czech Order of the White Lion
• 2001: Golden Hen Media Prize from SUPERillu and the Mitteldeutscher Rundfunk MDR for its services to German reunification
• 2002: European Prize Charles V from the European Academy of Yuste
• 2003: EuroNatur Prize from the Euronatur Foundation for his services to international environmental understanding
• 2003: Grammy with Bill Clinton and Sophia Loren for the radio play Peter and the Wolf
• 2005: Point Alpha Prize with George HW Bush and Helmut Kohl , Osgar
• 2005: Augsburg Peace Prize
• 2005: Honorary doctorate from the Law Faculty of the Westphalian Wilhelms University due to his "significant involvement in ending the East-West conflict"
• 2007: Dr. Friedrich Joseph Haass Prize of the German-Russian Forum
• 2007: Energy Globe Award : Honorary Award for Lifetime Achievement
• 2009: Osgar
• 2010: Dresden Prize
• 2010: Aleksandr Men Prize of the Academy of the Diocese of Rottenburg-Stuttgart
• 2010: Honorary Award of the German Federal Environment Foundation (DBU)
• 2010: Marion Dönhoff Prize
• 2011: Order of St. Andrew the First Called
• 2011: Franz Josef Strauss Prize
• 2015: World Economic Prize
• 2017: Lionheart Prize of Honor from the aid organization Human Projects for peace, freedom, enlightenment, integration and a fairer world

Quotes

Quote from Gorbachev, in the exit of the stairs of the Berlin underground station Brandenburger Tor : Dangers lurk for those who do not react to life.

• "I'll still put all of you in my pocket" (Central Committee-CPSU meeting in October 1981)
• "Building a new European house" (from 1987 in various speeches on the future of Europe)
• " To think of peace means to think of the children " ( in a letter to Astrid Lindgren , 1987)
• Gorbachev himself, at least verbatim and publicly, never said the most frequently quoted sentence, "If you come too late, life punishes you" (East Berlin, October 6, 1989). Gorbachev, who visited the GDR on the occasion of the celebrations for his 40th birthday , honored the victims of fascism on October 6, shortly after his arrival in East Berlin in the Neue Wache Unter den Linden. Then he spontaneously approached the waiting journalists and said to the cameras, “Я думаю, опасности только подстерегают тех, кто не реагирует на жизнь. [...] " (" Yes dumaju, opasnosti tolko podsteregajut tech, kto ne reagirujet na shisn. [...] ") , which was translated live by the interpreter with the following words: " I think dangers await only those who do not arise life react. And whoever takes up the impulses emanating from life - the impulses emanating from society and accordingly shapes his policy should have no difficulties, that is a normal phenomenon. " He expressed this reform idea several times during his visit to Berlin, both before the GDR state leadership as well - according to eye-witnesses, including Jens Reich - Russian only slightly changed before a crowd in East Berlin, here: "Трудности подстерегают тех, кто не реагирует на жизнь" ( "Trudnosti podsteregajut tech, kto ne reagirujet na Zhizn ") . In English: "Difficulties lurk in the face of those who do not react to life" .

It is now controversial how the - possibly wanted - change of this sentence in German came about. There are the following indications for this:

• At a subsequent informal press conference, Gennady Gerassimov , the then spokesman for Gorbachev, is said to have summed up his thoughts, which Gorbachev expressed several times during his visit, initially in English: "Those who are late will be punished by life itself" .
• According to Christoph Drösser , Gorbatschow writes in his memoir that two days later he said to Honecker in a one-on-one conversation: “Life demands courageous decisions. Life punishes those who come too late ” .

According to a documentary (film by Ignaz Lozo) that was broadcast on October 17, 2010 by Phoenix, Gorbachev's statement did not refer to Honecker or the GDR, but to the comrades at home in the Soviet Union. One would have to look at the course of the entire interview given on the street to come to a clearer assessment. The former GDR State Council chairman Egon Krenz declared two decades later in a television documentary that Gorbachev had "coined this sentence on himself".

Movies

• Gorbachev. Paradise. Documentary, LZ / CZ / F, 2020. Shown in ARTE, August 17, 2021, 8:15 pm - 10:00 pm (in interview form).

Publications

In the bibliographical Internet database RussGUS (freely accessible) around 700 references to literature are offered for “Gorbachev” (search for subject notations under form search: 16.2.2 / Gorbacev, M *).

• Selected speeches and writings. Dietz , Berlin, 1986, ISBN 3-320-00690-8 .
• Selected speeches and essays. (5 volumes). Dietz, Berlin 1987–1990, ISBN 3-320-01173-1 .
• Speeches and essays on glasnost and perestroika. Progress, Moscow 1989, ISBN 5-01-002303-2 .
• The people need the whole truth. Dietz, Berlin 1990, ISBN 3-320-01556-7
• Transformation and new thinking for our country and for the whole world. Dietz, Berlin 1988, ISBN 3-320-01213-4 .
• The speech. “We need democracy like the air we breathe”. Presentation to the Central Committee of the CPSU on January 27, 1987. Rowohlt , Reinbek bei Hamburg 1987, ISBN 3-499-12168-9 .
• Perestroika, the second Russian revolution. A new policy for Europe and the world. Knaur , Munich 1987, ISBN 3-426-26375-0 ; expanded paperback edition ibid. 1989, ISBN 3-426-03961-3 .
• Glasnost. The new way of thinking. Ullstein , Berlin 1989, ISBN 3-550-07220-1 .
• The common house of Europe and the future of perestroika. Econ , Düsseldorf / Vienna / New York, NY 1989, ISBN 3-430-13330-0 .
• The coup. Bertelsmann , Munich 1991, ISBN 3-570-01408-8 .
• The collapse of the Soviet Union. Bertelsmann, Munich 1992, ISBN 3-570-02068-1 .
• Memories. Siedler , Berlin 1995, ISBN 3-88680-524-7 ISBN 3-442-72037-0 .
• with Wadim Sagladin & Anatoli Tschernjajew: The new way of thinking. Politics in the Age of Globalization. Goldmann , Munich 1997, ISBN 3-442-12754-8 .
• with Daisaku Ikeda : Our paths meet on the horizon. Goldmann, Munich 1998, ISBN 3-442-75542-5 .
• How it was. German reunification. Ullstein, Berlin 1999, ISBN 3-550-07005-5 .
• About my country. Russia's way into the 21st century. Beck, Munich 2000, ISBN 3-406-46165-4 .
• My manifesto for the earth. Act now for peace, global justice and an ecological future. Campus-Verlag, Frankfurt / New York 2003, ISBN 3-593-37215-0 .
• Everything in good time: my life. From the Russian by Birgit Veit, Hoffmann and Campe, Hamburg 2013, ISBN 978-3-455-50276-3 .
• The new Russia: the upheaval and the Putin system (original title: Posle Kremlja , translated by Boris Reitschuster ). Quadriga , Cologne 2015, ISBN 978-3-86995-082-2 .
• An appeal from Mikhail Gorbachev to the world. Finally come to your senses - NEVER AGAIN WAR! With Franz Alt.Benevento, Wals near Salzburg 2017, ISBN 978-3-7109-0016-7 .
• What is at stake now. My call for peace and freedom . Siedler, Munich 2019, ISBN 978-3-8275-0128-8 .

literature

• Wilfried Bergmann and Werner Krawietz (eds.): After 20 years of perestroika - ways to a new world order: Michael S. Gorbatschow and Richard von Weizsäcker in conversation on the Petersberg in Bonn . in: Gorbatschow-Sonderheft / im Benehmen mit dem Petersburger Dialog , Volume 40 (2009), Issue 2, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2009, ISBN 978-3-428-13236-2 (=  legal theory , Volume 2, 2009).
• Ignaz Lozo : Gorbachev - The world changer . Scientific Book Society , Darmstadt 2021, ISBN 978-3-8062-4173-0 .
• Archie Brown: The Gorbachev Factor. Change of a world power. Insel , Frankfurt am Main / Leipzig 2000, ISBN 3-458-17016-2 .
• Stefan Creuzberger : Willy Brandt and Michail Gorbatschow: Efforts to Create a Second “New Ostpolitik”, 1985–1990 , Be.bra , Berlin 2015, ISBN 978-3-95410-041-5 .
• György Dalos : Gorbachev. Man and power. A biography. Beck , Munich 2011, ISBN 978-3-406-61340-1 .
• Aleksandr Galkin and Anatolij Tschernjajew (eds.): Michail Gorbatschow and the German question. Soviet documents 1986–1991 . Oldenbourg , Munich 2011. ISBN 978-3-486-58654-1 .
• Frank Golczewski : Idol or hate object. The consequences of Mikhail Gorbače͏̈v's historical role. In: Michael Epkenhans / Ewald Frie (ed.): Politicians without office. From Metternich to Helmut Schmidt (= Otto von Bismarck Foundation Scientific Series, Vol. 28). Schöningh, Paderborn 2020, pp. 223-237, ISBN 978-3-506-70264-7 .
• Karl Held (Ed.): From the reform of “real socialism” to the destruction of the Soviet Union. The life's work of Mikhail Gorbachev. GegenStandpunkt , Munich 1992, ISBN 3-929211-00-9 .
• Ignaz Lozo : The coup against Gorbachev and the end of the Soviet Union . Cologne-Weimar-Vienna 2014, ISBN 978-3-412-22230-7 .
• Klaus-Rüdiger May : Mikhail Gorbatschow. His life and its meaning for Russia's future. Campus , Frankfurt / New York, NY 2005, ISBN 3-593-37400-5 .
• Hans-Jürgen Meyer, The Mysterious - Gorbachev's Beginnings as Secretary General in the View of the Foreign Office (1985-1987) , Contemporary History Research 58, Berlin 2021, ISBN 978-3-428-18358-6 .
• Alexander Rahr , Nikolai Polyansky: Gorbachev - the new man. Universitas-Verlag, 1986, ISBN 3-8004-1107-5 .
• Gerd Ruge : Mikhail Gorbachev. Biography. Fischer , Frankfurt am Main 1990, ISBN 3-10-068506-7 .
• Nikolai Ryschkow : My boss Gorbachev. The true story of a downfall , Das Neue Berlin , Berlin 2013, ISBN 978-3-360-02168-7 .
• Gail Sheehy: Gorbachev: The man who changed the world. Munich 1991, ISBN 3-471-78635-X .
• William Taubman : Gorbachev. The man and his time. A biography . CH Beck, Munich 2018, ISBN 978-3-406-70044-6 .

Web links

Commons : Mikhail Gorbachev  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Wikiquote: Mikhail Gorbachev  - Quotes

• Literature by and about Michail Sergejewitsch Gorbatschow in the catalog of the German National Library
• Works by and about Michail Sergejewitsch Gorbatschow  in the German Digital Library
• Irmgard Zündorf: Michail Sergejewitsch Gorbatschow. Tabular curriculum vitae in the LeMO ( DHM and HdG )
• Information from the Nobel Foundation on the 1990 award ceremony for Mikhail Gorbachev (English)
• Mikhail Gorbachev: “History is Not Preordained: A New Cold War Can Be Averted” , The Gorbachev Foundation , January 31, 2007
• M. Gorbachev: Capital is to blame . Cicero , December 2008
• RussGUS

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b} Биография , gorby.ru, biography in Russian.
2. ↑ Михаил Горбачев: "Что бы ни происходило с Россией, назад она уже не вернется" , rosbalt.ru, April 12, 2005.
3. ↑ On This Day in 1931 Mikhail Gorbachev Was Born. In: The Moscow Times . March 2, 2021, accessed January 8, 2021 . 
4. ↑ ^{a b} russland.RU: The sentimental politician Mikhail Gorbachev turned 75 ( memento from January 20, 2008 in the Internet Archive ). March 4, 2006.
5. ↑ news.bbc.co.uk: 1985: Gorbachev becomes Soviet leader . Accessed August 17, 2009.
6. ↑ Aleksandr Galkin / Anatolij Tschernjajew (eds.): Michail Gorbatschow and the German question sehepunkte , 11 (2011), No. 9.
7. ↑ Rudolf Augstein : Inviolable, but endangered. In: Der Spiegel , October 22, 1990.
8. ↑ Katarina Hall: AZERBAIJAN'S BLACK JANUARY. January 20, 2016, archived from the original on October 27, 2017 ; accessed on October 27, 2017 (English). 
9. ↑ Mikhail Gorbachev: Everything in its time. My life. Hoffmann and Campe, Hamburg 2013, ISBN 978-3-455-50276-3 , p. 481.
10. ↑ Michael Gorbachev: Lecture. In: "Perspectives of the Green Belt", BfN scripts 102nd Federal Agency for Nature Conservation, May 3, 2019, archived from the original on May 3, 2019 ; accessed on June 1, 2019 . 
11. ↑ The world is in a state of turmoil (March 5, 2005) ( Memento of December 16, 2008 in the Internet Archive )
12. ^ ^{A b c} Matthias Schepp, Christian Neef: There were really idiots In: Der Spiegel , August 15, 2011.
13. ↑ History is never fatal ( Memento from December 16, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) May 15, 2007.
14. ^ Open letter from Mikhail S. Gorbachev ( Memento of December 16, 2008 in the Internet Archive ), March 26, 2008
15. ↑ Gorbachev is a partner in Nowaja Gazeta , Russland-Aktuell , June 9, 2006
16. ↑ ^{a b} Putin should go: Gorbachev calls for resignation In: n-tv , December 24, 2011.
17. ↑ Printing of the street does not allow according to taz.de , December 7, 2011
18. ↑ ^{a b} Gorbachev praises Putin in the highest tones In: FAZ , November 6, 2014, accessed on November 8, 2014.
19. ↑ Mikhail Gorbachev: I am against all walls , RBTH, October 16, 2014.
20. ↑ An appeal from Mikhail Gorbachev to the world. Wals near Salzburg 2017, p. 6.
21. ↑ Mikhail Gorbachev: Come to your senses - never again war !: An appeal from Mikhail Gorbachev to the world . Benevento Publishing, 2017, p. 60 ( full text in Google book search).
22. ^ Antje Vollmer , Hauke ​​Ritz : Mutwillig playful In: Frankfurter Rundschau , January 24, 2014.
23. ^ The man who wanted to save the Soviet Union faz.net , March 2, 2021.
24. ↑ Gail Sheehy: Gorbachev: The man who changed the world. List, Munich 1991; P. 416. ISBN 3-471-78635-X .
25. ↑ Gorbachev receives the highest order for his birthday In: Russland-Aktuell , March 2, 2011.
26. ↑ Gorbi here - traitor there In: Deutschlandradio , March 2, 2011.
27. ↑ Christian Neef: Russia's hatred of Gorbachev: Shitstorm against the dead said In: SPIEGEL ONLINE , August 8, 2013.
28. ↑ "The German press is the most vicious of all" , Michail Gorbatschow in conversation with Sabine Adler . In: Deutschlandfunk , May 14, 2009.
29. ↑ Nikita Miroschnitschenko: Mikhail Gorbachev: Attempts to indict after applause and jubilation ( Memento from April 8, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) In: Voice of Russia , April 16, 2014.
30. ^ György Dalos: Gorbachev. Man and power. A biography. , Beck, Munich 2011, p. 295 f. ISBN 978-3-406-61340-1 .
31. ↑ Entry for 2003 on the official Grammy Awards page (accessed February 13, 2012)
32. ↑ Malcolm Moore: Mikhail Gorbachev admits he is a Christian. In: The Daily Telegraph , March 19, 2008.
33. ↑ Gorbachev clarifies: I am not a Christian , Katholische Nachrichten of March 26, 2008.
34. ↑ Website for the award ceremony with greetings, laudation and words of thanks from the award winner Gorbachev.
35. ↑ Honorary award for “Gorbi” award from the Federal Environment Foundation , Nano / 3sat of October 29, 2010.
36. ↑ dpa: Michail Gorbatschow honored with the Marion Dönhoff Prize | shz.de. Retrieved November 22, 2019 . 
37. ↑ Mikhail Gorbachev is awarded the highest medal in Russia. In: Focus , March 2, 2011.
38. ↑ 2017 Prize Winner , Human Projects.
39. ^ Sybil Countess Schönfeldt: Astrid Lindgren . Rowohlt E-Book, 2014, ISBN 978-3-644-51711-0 ( google.de [accessed June 9, 2020]).
40. ↑ ^{a b c} Ulla Plog: "Those who come too late are punished by life" In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , October 6, 2004.
41. ↑ Spiegel TV : Five weeks in autumn. Protocol of a German Revolution . Video from 1990.
42. ↑ Recent research and findings on the German language , website of the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in Frankfurt am Main .
43. ↑ right ? : Gorbi's warning . In: The time . No. 41/1999.
44. ↑ From the daily run of a top GDR politician , dctp.tv
45. ↑ Review

predecessor	government office	successor
Konstantin Chernenko	General Secretary of the CPSU 1985–1991	Vladimir Ivashko
Andrei Gromyko	Head of State of the Soviet Union 1988–1991	- (Russian Federation)